ECUADOR SEEKS TO INVEST IN CRISIS-RIDDEN NORTHERN BORDER WITH COLOMBIA.
The government of Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa has begun to implement its Plan Ecuador, an effort to make Ecuador's northern border with Colombia more secure and attend to the humanitarian crisis there. Correa conceives of the plan as a nonviolent countermeasure to the US-funded Plan Colombia, a multibillion-dollar aid package consisting mostly of military material and funding (see NotiSur, 2001-03-02 and 2004-04-02).
Plan Ecuador: Correa's response to Plan Colombia's "failure"
Human rights groups and the UN have praised Correa's plan for the northern border area, where a refugee crisis of Colombians displaced by the ongoing civil conflict in their country is taking place (see NotiSur, 2006-03-03).
In April, Correa announced efforts to use government spending for Plan Ecuador. "We hope that the problems of the common border will be overcome, and we regret that the Colombian government insists on the failed Plan Colombia, which has not resolved the problem of drug trafficking but has indeed altered its relations with Ecuador," he said on April 24. He presented the plan that day, saying that his government would not "intervene in the conflict nor [would it] militarize the relations with Bogota."
The Colombian government said it would study the text of the plan, whose announced objectives were, according to Ecuador's government, improving the security and social development of the border-area populations, with special attention to displaced persons and refugees.
In April, a delegation of Colombian human rights groups, labor unions, and Catholic Church representatives called on Correa and other regional governments to work to achieve peace in Colombia. "We have agreed to ask the countries of Latin America to help us to resolve the conflict politically," said Jorge Rojas, director of the group Consultoria para los Derechos Humanos y el Desplazamiento. He called on the governments of Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and Uruguay to work as "facilitators or intermediaries between the government [of Colombia] and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC)," the nation's principal rebel group.
"Our house is burning, we cannot put the fire out, and for that reason we need the help of other countries. The American continent, passive, cannot appreciate the bleeding-out of Colombian society," said Rojas. He said he understood Correa's unwillingness to interfere in the conflict, but he asked that "he get involved in the peace," without worrying...
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